by Matthew Gagnon ’09

At an altitude of 15,000 feet in the Andes, most of us would be gulping for air. Yet thin oxygen is all in a day’s work to the people who live on the Junin Plateau of Peru; so are the challenges of farming in extreme weather conditions that can rapidly fluctuate between day and night. This is where farmers make their living hand-harvesting a tuberous root called maca from the rocky soil. With just enough rain (and if grazing sheep don’t find it), maca grows underground to maturity in eight months, and, once harvested, is a prized commodity—for local farmers as well as the burgeoning field of alternative medicines.

Maca looks like a cross between a turnip and a carrot. Its stalk is less burly, its body slightly less bulbous than a turnip’s; it’s pale yellow, and smaller, shorter, and curvier than a carrot. Cultivated in soil rich with minerals, maca smells like horseradish. Like the Peruvians who harvest it, maca has evolved to withstand extreme conditions. After digging it up, farmers load it onto the backs of their trusted alpacas and llamas for a slow descent from the highlands, and, ultimately, to a natural foods seller near you.

For over 2,000 years, maca, also called Peruvian ginseng, has been consumed as a food and a medicine. It was part of the diet of the Incas, and has long been used to boost overall energy, enhance fertility, and improve sexual function. In the lexicon of biochemistry, it is an adaptogen—a powerful natural substance that increases the body’s resistance to stress, trauma, anxiety, and fatigue. Thanks in part to Chris Kilham ’75, maca is now available as an herbal supplement. It has enjoyed a recent surge in use over the past decade in the United States and is starting to gain a foothold in European countries.

Kilham, aka the Medicine Hunter, has made it his life’s work to travel the world in search of traditional medicinal plants that are unique to particular cultures and regions and sustainably share their benefits with the rest of the world. Maca is just one that he has helped bring to Western markets; Maca Tru™ tablets are one of his biggest success stories.

The emergence of maca in the West since 1988 is largely due to Kilham’s efforts. “These plants need advocates,” says Kilham. “They need people to stay on the case for decades if necessary. That’s just the way commerce works.”

No stranger to radio, television, and magazine interviews, Kilham also fosters awareness of the benefits of medicinal plants by writing books—14 to date. His most recent, Hot Plants: Nature’s Proven Sex Boosters for Men and Women, explores plant-derived substances as an alternative to popular sexual enhancement drugs like Viagra. Kilham hosts the TV series Medicine Trail, a travel show for the holistically inclined. He takes viewers on explorations of exotic destinations where they see medicinal plants in their native environments and meet the indigenous peoples who cultivate and harvest them.

In a recent televised exploit in La Parrada Market in Lima, Peru, Kilham ingested a smoothie made mostly of frog and maca. You can see the segment on YouTube: Kilham holds a plastic cup filled to the brim with a syrupy green liquid, tips the cup back, and lets the smoothie run down his throat. After gazing off for a moment in apparent reflection, he turns to the camera and says “Not bad,” though his face contorts. “It’s delicious,” Kilham says, “it tastes mostly sweet with a funky after-bite.”

Kilham may be the public face of Medicine Hunter, but he frequently notes that his work is not a solo endeavor. His wife, Zoe Helene, an integrated communications expert and multidisciplinary artist for sustainability, often travels with him. He’s also accompanied by a team of specialists who are experts on the plant being studied, its environment, and the local language.

“My role in Chris’s work is multidimensional and in a rapid evolution mode,” says Helene. “I’ll do practical things such as collect biographical info to communicate in clear and meaningful ways who Chris is and what he’s up to, or send out special alerts and announcements to key people so that everyone can keep in better touch and attend events they’re interested in.”

Being an advocate for particular plants can be grueling work, requiring extensive research into where the plant comes from, how it’s grown and harvested, and what kind of meaning the plant has within a culture.

“Every culture has a different tradition,” says Kilham. “Environmental circumstances and traditional cultural life will be very different in a place like the Brazilian Amazon compared to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The environment demands a whole different life and history, but the use of medicinal plants remains the same.”

“To the students he’s Indiana Jones,” says professor Lyle E. Craker, director of the Medicinal Plant Program at UMass Amherst. Craker offered Kilham an adjunct teaching position eight years ago because students were asking for more advanced courses in medicinal plants. Now Kilham is “Explorer-In-Residence” in the Department of Plant, Soil, and Insect Sciences, where he is a volunteer teacher. His signature course is a one-credit ethnobotany class, “The Shaman’s Pharmacy.”

“He’s got a good rapport [with students] and has a dynamic personality,” says Craker. “When you’re talking about ethnobotany, you’re talking about native cultures and the type of plant material they use. He’s gone to those places and lived with the people. He packs a punch by drawing in large numbers of students who are interested in learning about ethnobotany and the cultural significance of the field.”
Growing up in the sixties, Kilham came of age when people were beginning to question the safety and efficacy of synthetic products. That questioning influenced him to become an ethnobotanist. “In the 1960s a lot of us came to believe that things that were natural were just intrinsically better for you,” says Kilham, “which of course turned out to be the case, in terms of safety, toxicity, and all those important factors.”

Kilham is not alone in thinking that medicinal plants are good for you. A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2004 found that 36 percent of adults age 18 and over are using complementary and alternative medicine. Walk into Whole Foods or Wal-Mart, or surf the online marketplace, and the sheer quantity and variety of herbal medicinals will astound you. At the same time, Americans are also increasingly dependent on pharmaceuticals, a reliance with a downside. According to the 2003 study, “Death By Medicine*,” up to 300,000 people die every year from hospital and outpatient adverse drug reactions (ADR).

While many countries throughout the world rely on natural medicines, America remains the odd man out, says Kilham. While it’s true that common drugs are derived from plants—such as the opiate morphine, made from poppies—our current drug laws do not allow medicinal plants to be patented, and drug companies can’t profit off a plant they can’t patent. Drug-makers are driven, therefore, to explore synthetic cocktails that may or may not be beneficial to the human body or mind, but ultimately can generate a profit.

At 56, Kilham exudes vitality, embodying a persuasive argument for the effectiveness of medicinal plants. His ultimate aim is to develop treatments for various health problems like insomnia, which by some estimates afflicts 70 million people in this country. But as he looks for ways to package cures and health aids in a capsule, a powder, or a skin cream, he also wants to ensure that the people who grow and harvest the medicinal plants are treated with respect—and that the cultivation of these crops is sustainable.

“There can be cultural and environmental benefits to this work,” says Kilham. “My wife and I are both involved in the sustainability aspect of what I do, to help protect natural environments and enhance the prospects of the native people.”

Kilham tells a story about traveling to Polynesian islands in the South Pacific where he worked to study, then bring to market, cosmetic oil derived from the tamanu tree. The anti-neuralgic and anti-inflammatory properties of tamanu oil are in great demand by consumers. Applied topically, the oil treats acne and acne scars and helps heal cuts and scrapes.

Those isles in the South Pacific now export large amounts of cosmetic oil to the Western world. “That’s an example of how trade has helped native people to flourish from growing a plant that’s endemic to the area,” says Kilham. “In the South Pacific, we remodeled and rebuilt 10 schools. In Peru, we helped create a free dental clinic. You can do these kinds of things with revenues from sales. The people who work with these plants benefit from more than just making a wage.”

“Maca is not only a plant for us,” says Sergio Cam, who hails from Ninacaca at Cerro de Pasco, Peru, and runs a trading center in the highlands. “It is a symbol of a life tradition for the people of the Andes. We hope someday that people all over the world will benefit from eating maca.”

Cam has worked with Kilham since 1998. He says his people can feel Kilham’s desire to show the world what maca has to offer. “Understanding the farmer and respecting their life and work makes the farmer feel good and hopeful,” says Cam, “knowing that we are not alone and can make a difference.”
Cam says the region has benefited in concrete ways, too, citing the dental clinic, fairs and festivals, and processing equipment that the area wouldn’t have otherwise.

Kilham is careful in his dealings with other cultures. He says, “I need to be moderate in what I say because people get their hopes up. It gives me a certain responsibility to follow through, and not be a nature-medicinal tourist, but actually make good on the whole project.”

The whole project seems likely to continue apace, given the upsurge in demand for naturally derived medicines in the West. Kilham’s efforts bring a larger range of options to our medicine cabinets and allow us to respect traditions and cultures along the way.

The Ingest Test: One Man’s Experience

After interviewing Chris Kilham for UMass Amherst magazine, I decided to take maca myself and began experimenting with other herbs and plants he told me about that boast health benefits.

For years, I have taken dietary supplements. Every morning I take a multivitamin—such as New Chapter’s Probiotic Every Man vitamins—which offers crucial vitamins and minerals, as well as immune-boosting and energy-enhancing herbs and fungi. I also take fish oil rich in Omega-3 to combat high cholesterol instead of resorting to drugs like Lipitor. This may seem like a lot of work, but I am interested in keeping my body healthy and my mind alert and seek out natural remedies to do so.
In February, I began taking 100mg capsules of rhodiola rosea, a prized plant found in Siberia and touted by Russian athletes for increasing energy. I learned about it first from the Medicine Hunter website. Rhodiola is a stress adaptogen, acts as a mood stabilizer, and is said to improve memory and cognitive performance.

After a week of taking rhodiola, I noted a difference in my stamina throughout the day. Months later, I have yet to experience memory improvement, despite experimenting with dosages. I currently take 450mg daily. What I can say is that rhodiola has helped to modulate my moods, and continuous usage of rhodiola boosts my mental and physical resilience to stress. I’ve noticed the way my mind and body remain at ease in stressful situations.

In addition, I often take rhodiola in liquid form, adding 20 to 30 drops into a glass of water for an extra energy boost, which doesn’t come with the afternoon jitters associated with a caffeinated drink. The effect is hard to describe, but it’s something akin to a fresh breeze washing over you, a feeling of rejuvenation.

I have also been experimenting with maca. Every morning I take a spoonful of maca and slide it into a glass of orange juice. It’s tough to get the particles to disperse with a spoon; I prefer using a container with a tight-fitting lid and shaking it vigorously.

Maca is a good addition to a morning beverage, and provides me with a much-needed energy boost in the afternoon, especially if I plan some kind of physical activity, like a long walk or a bike ride. After only a short time of taking maca, I noticed an increase in my energy that erased the physical drag at the end of a workout.

Taken in the morning, in the afternoon, or both, maca holds good on its claims of providing energy support. It also offers a cupful of vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. Last, but not least, maca is known as a sexual stimulant. I could speak to this in more detail, but then I’d be divulging more information than you’d probably want to know.